In a report on NPR this morning about the growth of the
Islamic religion in Chicago, an African-American who has
converted to Islam was interviewed. He explained that many
African-Americans are converting to Islam because it was
the religion of their ancestors. He also said that it is
common knowledge "to most people" that most of the slaves
brought from Africa to the U.S. during the Atlantic slave
trade were Muslim.

This raises a number of questions for me. Were not most
of the slaves transported to the Americas practicing
"traditional" African religions? Is there any evidence of
Islamic practice or behavior among slave communities in the
U.S. South during the period in which slavery was
practiced? And, perhaps most importantly, why is the
notion that the African slaves were Muslims "common
knowledge" to some people?

Editor's Note:
Some aspects of the topic were
discussed on H-AFRICA in August
1995. Those messages can be found
on the H-AFRICA home page:
<http://h-net.msu.efdu/~africa>
by selecting discussion logs, and
then logs for August 1995.
Nonetheless, there are questions
raised here--which especially bear
on the production of knowledge--
which could fruitfully be discussed
now.
mep
***********************************

I would suggest that Becky Shumway was listening to was a
discussion of heritage, not history. The "facts" presented
by heritage rarely accord with those accepted by historians
as true. A marvelous piece contrasting heritage and history
appeared in the American Historical Association newsletter
PERSPECTIVES in January 1994. The author is David
Lowenthal, an eminent geographer and West Indies
specialist.

Let me quote some of the most salient passages:

History and heritage alike apprehend the past. But
what they find and transmit, and why, are quite
different. History tells all who listen what supposedly
happened, suggesting how things came to be as they are.
Heritage passes on exclusive myths of origin and
continuity, endowing a select group with power and
prestige.

History is constrained by specific rules of inquiry and
discourse. Historians know they can never shed bias, but
they are bound to try. As validity rests on open
scrutiny, others can inspect their sources. Their
conclusions can be verified or refuted.

Heritage is not like this at all. It seeks a past that
will unify adherents and promote joint aims. Its goal is
not shared knowledge but self-esteem....

Heritage is immune to criticism, because it is not
erudition but catechism; not what IS but what OUGHT to
be true. What counts is utility.... Heritage demands
uncritical endorsement and precludes dissent....

Heritage demands faith in a mystique exclusive to
devotess. It need not, indeed cannot be proven to
outsiders, whom it is meant to mystify or offend. To
this end, heritage deploys facts not only unprovable
but often demonstrably wrong. Were they not wrong,
outsiders could share them. Hence heritage thrives on
empirical error....

Sharing misinformation excludes those whose own
heritage encodes different catechisms. 'Correct'
knowledge could not so serve, because it is open to all.
What is generally accessible cannot become a criterion
of exclusion; only 'false' knowledge can do this. Hence
heritage mandates MISreadings of history.

Again, the author of the material just quoted is David
Lowenthal. I think his observations might help explain why
some people take it as "common knowledge" that most slaves
arriving in America were Muslims, despite the absence of
historical backing for such a claim. The NPR conversation
was about the construction of identity and heritage in the
late 20th century, not about the actual history of slavery.

On numbers, Gomez concludes that "Muslims may have come to
America by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Beyond
this general statement, a more precise assessment of their
numbers is difficult to sustain at this time" (682). This,
out of the half a million or so slaves imported into the
mainland colonies and US up to 1808....

I am not sure what "mis-information" Ken Dossar is
referring to but I feel compelled to comment on the
influence of Islam in the African slave population.

While I certainly agree that Muslims, or people enslaved
from Islamicized areas of Africa did not make up the
majority of the slave trade to the Americas, I beleive
that the influence which Muslim slaves may have had on the
slave populations of the Americas far exceeded their
numbers.

Consequently, Ken Dossar's blanket comment that "the
evidence however point to the fact that the majority of
Africans transported to the New World brought with them
traditional belief systems" somewhat misleading. Part of the
reason Muslim slaves and Africans who originated in
Islamicized areas are perceived as such a small percentage
of the total population is twofold.

The first has to do with the failure of contemporary
observers to recognize them as such. Recall Charles Ball's
self-confessed ignorance of Islam in the actions of a slave
whom he encountered in his travels.

The second is the failure of modern historians to
recognize Muslims among the enlsaved African population.
Like Ball, many Americanists do not recognize signs of
Islamic inlfuence amongst slaves. This is changing and I
beleive that within the next years we will see more evidence
of how Muslims may have influenced other Africans and how
their presence will influence historical understanding of
African identity and communal formation in the New World.

Muslims came to the Americas from two distinct regions.
First, in the early eighteenth century the Senegambia was an
avenue from which the sons and daughters of Allah were
sent to the Americas.

Later, in the early nineteenth century, captives from the
Central Sudan states began to appear in the Americas. The
latter group landed primarily in South America and in the
Caribbean because they came, for the most part, after the
prohibition on slave imports into the US.

Nevertheless, within the boundaries of the modern United
States there is eveidence of Muslim slaves in South
Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana (the region in which I do my
own work).

The question of the numbers of Muslim individuals among
the African population is, in the end, perhaps not as
important as the influence these individuals may have had
on the development of African and ultimately
African-American (North, South and Central) communities
and indeed European communities.

Islam and the influence of Islamic beliefs, in whatever
form, cannot be taken lightly and I believe has been
seriously underestimated by scholars especially in the
United States south. I am confident, however, that this will
change.

As I am not a historian, I refrained from commenting on
this exchange. However, Peter Caron's intervention would be
misleading to non-historians if it were to stand by itself.

The thrust of the argument that he is responding to is that
Muslims were also, and largely, victims of the slave
trade. To make this point, it is necessary for the argument
to hold that Muslims comprised a majority of the slaves, an
important percentage of the slaves, or occupied as special
place in the community, etc.

Curtin's study of the Atlantic Slave trade reveals that the
bulk of the slaves were brought from the Congo basin and
the Guinea coast--non-Muslim regions. A small percentage
came from the Senegambia, and even those numbers would not
have been necessarily Muslims as they included people
brought down to the coast from the interior.

The regions from which most of the slaves were taken was
not Muslim. It did include great numbers of Yoruba and FOn
and related peoples, whence the existence of Voodoo (Vodun)
in Haiti and the Caribbean, and the worship of Yoruba gods
to this day in Brazil and throughout the Caribbean and
even the American south.

Curtin's figures have been challenged, and now are thought
to be about two-thirds of the right number--but the
proportions of who came from where are approximately
correct.

What this argument clearly ignores is the ideological
optic on which it is based--an optic that chooses to ignore
the realities of the trans-Saharan slave trade. Hostility
between sub-Saharan Africa--reflected in Armah's bitter
novels about the white Arab slave traders, or in Sembene's
indictment of the Moors, in *Ceddo* or in a number of short
stories, or in the figure of the shopkeeper in
*Mandabi*--and the Muslim north is indeed profound.

One could mention racist attitudes on the part of those who
named the Zenj coast (where in Arabic Zenj came to mean
black and slave), as well as reciprocal feelings from
those on the other side of the desert. Consider, again,
Diop's short story "Maman Caiman" for this hostility.

Present-day fundamentalist politics will seek to falsify
this history, but only people of good will will be able to
transcend the wrongs of the past by beginning with a
recognition of what occurred and a desire to move beyond
it.

>
>
> I am not sure what "mis-information" Ken Dossar is
> referring to but I feel compelled to comment on the
> influence of Islam in the African slave population.
>
> While I certainly agree that Muslims, or people enslaved
> from Islamicized areas of Africa did not make up the
> majority of the slave trade to the Americas, I beleive
> that the influence which Muslim slaves may have had on the
> slave populations of the Americas far exceeded their
> numbers.
>
> Consequently, Ken Dossar's blanket comment that "the
> evidence however point to the fact that the majority of
> Africans transported to the New World brought with them
> traditional belief systems" somewhat misleading. Part of the
> reason Muslim slaves and Africans who originated in
> Islamicized areas are perceived as such a small percentage
> of the total population is twofold.
>
> The first has to do with the failure of contemporary
> observers to recognize them as such. Recall Charles Ball's
> self-confessed ignorance of Islam in the actions of a slave
> whom he encountered in his travels.
>
> The second is the failure of modern historians to
> recognize Muslims among the enlsaved African population.
> Like Ball, many Americanists do not recognize signs of
> Islamic inlfuence amongst slaves. This is changing and I
> beleive that within the next years we will see more evidence
> of how Muslims may have influenced other Africans and how
> their presence will influence historical understanding of
> African identity and communal formation in the New World.
>
> Muslims came to the Americas from two distinct regions.
> First, in the early eighteenth century the Senegambia was an
> avenue from which the sons and daughters of Allah were
> sent to the Americas.
>
> Later, in the early nineteenth century, captives from the
> Central Sudan states began to appear in the Americas. The
> latter group landed primarily in South America and in the
> Caribbean because they came, for the most part, after the
> prohibition on slave imports into the US.
>
> Nevertheless, within the boundaries of the modern United
> States there is eveidence of Muslim slaves in South
> Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana (the region in which I do my
> own work).
>
> The question of the numbers of Muslim individuals among
> the African population is, in the end, perhaps not as
> important as the influence these individuals may have had
> on the development of African and ultimately
> African-American (North, South and Central) communities
> and indeed European communities.
>
> Islam and the influence of Islamic beliefs, in whatever
> form, cannot be taken lightly and I believe has been
> seriously underestimated by scholars especially in the
> United States south. I am confident, however, that this will
> change.
>

I agree with Peter Caron when he writes, "Islam and the
influence of Islamic beliefs...cannot be taken lightly and
has been seriously underestimated by scholars...I am
confident, that this will change." As evidence emerges, as
scholars recognize and identify Islamic influence we will
have a more com- plete picture of what happened in the
Americas. Do we have it just now?

Caron agrees with me when he writes, "Muslims, or people
enslaved from Islamicized areas did not make up the
majority of the slave trade to the Americas." I wrote: "the
evidence points to the fact that the majority of Africans
transported to the New World brought with them traditional
belief systems, which essentially remained intact..." I'm
not certain why he sees this statement as "somewhat
misleading" if the majority of captives were neither
Christian or Muslim, what were they? Even if enslaved
Africans had converted to Christianity of Islam, did they
not put these beliefs on top of deep structured
traditions?

The questions of what happened to African belief systems
in the Americas is complex, as is the idea of the
influences. I don't have an issue with the influence of
Islam in the Americas. As Caron indicates our
understanding of this is changing. I think it would be
interesting if a connection could be made between the Males
in Bahia, and the image of Islam reflected in Julie Dash's
film "Daughters of the Dust". Sure the film is an artists
representation of a historical reality, but the film has
so much in it.

As I said, the notion of influence is important, but it is
not what generated this discussion. The initial discussion
came about because someone said that, it was common
knowledge "to most people" that most of the slaves brought
from Africa to the U.S. ...were Muslims. I think Plato
would characterize that statement as opinion which is
something different than fact. One member of this list
noted the difference between heritage and history. It is a
useful distinction.

And concerning mis-information, I had in mind things such
as: negroes have tails, they are savage heathens; or that
voodoo and other African traditions are evil and black
magic; or the prevelant notion that my God, my gender, or
my ethnic group is not only better than yours, it is the
best.

For the tapestry of our history to be reconstructed with
its thouands of threads, it will take time, hard work,
honesty and no ego.

Ken Dossar's point is well taken. There is no doubt that
the overwhelming majority of slaves brought to the Americas
were neither Muslims nor Christians, but ordered their
lives accoring to a belief system not based upon Eastern or
Western beliefs. So what were they? he asks. Good
question.

They were, as he points out, practicioners of beliefs
indigenous to Africa. But these beliefs were not homogenous
and despite similarities in basic cosmological structures,
they were as distinct from one another as perhaps Islam was
from Christianity. Unless of course, one attempts to argue
that they were all the same, which Dossar has not implied.

This point is important. For if someone exported from
Kongo, with its many centuries of exposure to
Portuguese-inspired Christianity is compared to a
practicioner of vodun from Dahomey who then is compared to
someone from Senegal, whose exposure to hundreds of years
of Islamic influences but who nevertheless maintains a
"traditional" belief system what have we then?

What I suggest - and here I concede Dossar's point that
the research remains before us - is that the potential
influence of a cohesive Muslim community which could, in
some cases even constitute a plurality, becomes very great
indeed.

Numbers do not tell us everything. True, most slaves over
several centuries originated in the Congo/Angola region of
Africa. Does this mean that Congo/Angola culture dominated
in the Americas? No.

Dossar is absolutely correct that history is a complex
weave and here is a perfect example. As African beliefs
meshed, meged and indeed competed in oppressive slave
systems throughout the Americas, religious beliefs changed
and adapted. One cannot assume that Vodun in Haiti was the
same as Vodun in Whydah or in Abomey.

If one sees all African religious beliefs - excluding
Islam and Christianity - as the same, the percentage of
Muslims is small and seemingly uninfluential. But if one
acknowledges the differences in what Dossar has labels "the
rest" the influence of even small numbers of Muslims who
remained faithful could have very important indeed.

Dossar has not actually said anything with which I
disagree. In fact, I agree with him more than it may
appear. The original thread supposed that Islam was a
primary influence among the African slave population. This
is clearly untrue. But, the influence of Islam has been
ignored and downplayed for a long time in part because of
the perspective of scholars of North American slavery who
could not, or would not, see Islamic influences.

Historians need to be aware Islam and learn to recognize
signs of it among New World African populations.

In North Africa just saying the shahada is considered
enough. In West Africa, where there is arguably an
underlying monotheism, and where belief in the power of
Islamic magic and charms is strong, almost anyone could
subscribe to the shahada (There is no god but God and
Muhammad is his messenger.)

Some kind of practice, at least the daily prayers, is
usually considered necessary to be considered a Muslim. In
Hausa you don't ask "Are you Muslim?" You say "Do you
pray?" By this standard there are far fewer Muslims in
North Africa than is usually claimed in the census
statistics.

The issue of who was a Muslim has always been a vexing one
for West Africans as well. There is a famous summary
article about this problem by Murray Last and M.A. Al-Hajj,
"Attempts at Definging a Muslim in Nineteenth Century
Hausaland and Bornu" in *Journal of the Historical Society
of Nigeria*, v.3 no. 2 (1965). More recently John Hunwick
has published *Shari`a in Songhay: the Replies of
al-Maghili to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad*
(OUP; 1985).

Perhaps it would be better to consider how much of what
kinds of Islamic beliefs and practices which slaves were
influenced by, as well as what positions they had in the
plantation system (overseers, house servants, field hands,
etc.) instead of just trying to do a cliometric "head
counting" of how many were literate Islamic scholars.

Perhaps it would be better to consider how much of
what kinds of Islamic beliefs and practices which
slaves were influenced by, as well as what positions
they had in the plantation system (overseers, house
servants, field hands, etc.) instead of just trying to
do a cliometric "head counting" of how many were
literate Islamic scholars.

These are indeed important questions, but as one who is more
familiar with African American than with African history, I
can say with a fair degree of certainty that we'll never
know the answers. The evidence just isn't there. It's hard
enough for historians to agree about the extent to which
Christianity, let alone Islam, was embraced by American
slaves (compare the works of John Boles and Sterling Stuckey,
for example).

The cliometric "head counting" is therefore best seen as a
rough attempt to get an "order of magnitude" fix on the size
of the Muslim (or Muslim-influenced) slave population. True,
it does nothing to answer the questions above or the other
fascinating queries introduced by other contributors to this
discussion. But it may at least allow us to speak cautiously
about the probable, or possible impact of Muslim beliefs and
practices, once the surviving evidence about particular
Muslims in particular times and places has been examined
thoroughly.

No doubt more evidence will come to light, or previously
"known" evidence will be read in new ways. But I would
humbly suggest that, at the "end" of all this work, we
still won't know what we'd really like to know about the
subject.